I was thinking of dropping an Incorporeal monster into a DW mission, but, unless I'm missing something, it would be impossible for anyone but the Killteam's Librarian to effect it, right?

Back when I was playing AD&D , I always hated the monsters that could only be effected by spells, and I'd rather not port over that kind of class favoritism into this game.

I know that Dark Heresy has a bunch of Holy stuff that can effect Incorporeals, but in DW I the only 'holy' thing that I can remember seeing is a Crozius Arcanum- and my party doesn't have a Chaplain.

So, is there anything that I'm missing in DW that allows non-psykers to harm Incorporeal creatures?

Gellar fields can restrain them but usually its warp thingies only. Thing is though, incoroporeal cannot hurt them either unless it has a way to become corporeal or you use the rules from BC where you can...briefly.

That or make up a relic item?

Edit, Sanctified I think also works which is a valid DW weapons quality.

Maybe let energy weapons hurt it.

What kind of incorporeal creatures?

You are dealing with space marines, guys who regularly go toe to claw with some of the most crazy bat-poop strange and frightening beings which ever existed. It is mentioned in the fear section of the core rulebook things which would drive a normal human insane are only slightly unnerving to a space marine. Point is, for something to drive a marine bonkers it has to be very terribly and powerfully insanity inducing; somehow I doubt a ghost or two will really pose any problems to a space marine.

Unless....

Those ghosts continuously alert enemies while the marines are sneaking.

Pulling levers or manipulating equipment the space marines have recently set or used. ("Who activated the drawbrigde!? Sven just fell off, now we gotta fish him out of that river... I hate the smell of wet fur.")

Or other similar annoying things, just be sure to allow an 'out' for the players (don't make things impossible).

As for incorporeal, set some rules:
How do they attack and will their normal attacks actually hurt a super human genetically modified killing machine?
Do they have specific weaknesses ("Man why don't those ghosts go anywhere near you Sven?" munch munch... scarf... uuuurrp "Dun know, but man this GARLIC bread sure is delicious. Want one?")

Are they limited to only certain areas, or near certains focii?

Are they part of the enemy force, or natural to the area, or neither?

Based upon the actual belief of space marines (or rather un-belief as it were) there aren't many religious or blessed items that would work for a space marine. Crozius Arcanums I'd say would, I always imagine them to work on a different principle to normal power weapons anyways. Force weapons and psychic weapons would obviously. Certain relic weapons (GM discrection, named weapon of a great hero who used it to slay 665+1 daemons yeah, generic relics that are only relics simply to limit their availability, maybe not so much) would have a 'history' of glory and honor which may give the marine, who obviously holds a great deal of respect for that history, some power over the untouchables. Las, melta, plasma... yeah not so much, they still rely on physics to work; things half-phased in the 'spirit realm' that can't be hurt by material weapons still shouldn't really be hurt by them. Psychically infused bolt shells, definately. If you think its necessary for the marines to have to kill the creatures, just be sure to give them the option (espetially if said creatures are known ahead of time) to obtain weapons or gear that can affect them.

Then there is the though, your kill-team includes a librarian for a reason. Don't go watering down the librarian's role by giving every other marine the ability to fill in for him every time it becomes important. It would do good for the team to learn some things actually require a specialist, and thus give the librarian player a sense of importance and let the other kill-team members be aware of the need to keep said specialist safe (even if they think he's a filthy mutant).

Then there is the though, your kill-team includes a librarian for a reason. Don't go watering down the librarian's role by giving every other marine the ability to fill in for him every time it becomes important. It would do good for the team to learn some things actually require a specialist, and thus give the librarian player a sense of importance and let the other kill-team members be aware of the need to keep said specialist safe (even if they think he's a filthy mutant).

What would you do if the group lacked a librarian? I don't want to straight-up leave out that kind of threat. They'd have to approach it a different way, having no psychic support.

Again though, how are you intending to have it damage them? Are you making it corporeal to attack or giving it a trait to allow it to harm physical beings without passing through?

You could for example require them to use delay or counter attacks to hit it in its brief moment of physical presence.

What kind of incorporeal creatures?

Again though, how are you intending to have it damage them? Are you making it corporeal to attack or giving it a trait to allow it to harm physical beings without passing through?

The monster is home-made, a bit of psychic 'residue' that has (due to extraordinary circumstances) become self-aware; it maintains its pseudo-existence by feeding on pain. Toward that end, it has special attacks that inflict pain (undecided if this will take the form of actual Warp Weapons that inflict Wounds, or a psychic power that causes Fatigue). So, it will be Incorporeal all the time (rather than have the Phase Trait and alternate between physical and ethereal).

Then there is the though, your kill-team includes a librarian for a reason. Don't go watering down the librarian's role by giving every other marine the ability to fill in for him every time it becomes important. It would do good for the team to learn some things actually require a specialist, and thus give the librarian player a sense of importance and let the other kill-team members be aware of the need to keep said specialist safe (even if they think he's a filthy mutant).

What would you do if the group lacked a librarian? I don't want to straight-up leave out that kind of threat. They'd have to approach it a different way, having no psychic support.

herichimo has a good point- units contain Specialists for a reason- but I tend to agree with Kshatriya : it's fine for a Specialist to be much better at a task than everyone else, but I dislike the idea of the Specialist being the only one who can do anything . That feels a bit cheesy to me... Also, I play DW as my 'fill-in' game for when we can't get enough of our regular players together to play Dark Heresy , and it's possible that the Librarian player may be one of those who is absent.

So, the take-away is that there's pretty much nothing in the Rules that would allow a standard Battle-Brother to harm this thing, and if I don't want the Librarian to be the sole hope of dealing with it, I'll have to make something up. Maybe something like that episode of Star Trek where they defeat a similar psychic parasite when Kirk convinces the Klingons to stop fighting and laugh at it...

You said it feeds on pain to survive yes? What about having a variation of Warp Instability then? Every round that it fails to harm a victim and feast on their pain, it takes damage and grows weaker. This way the party could defeat it by simply allowing it to exhaust itself. Random idea though...

Maybe the Omega Vault reveals an innocuous-looking talisman or three as protection? Something that makes the entity corporeal for a limited amount of time. Something that has to be puzzled out, used in a very specific way, and the PCs are left with discovering the secret to its properties, requiring a one-session side Mission involving tracing down some very ancient lore or "mystic" rite.

You said it feeds on pain to survive yes? What about having a variation of Warp Instability then? Every round that it fails to harm a victim and feast on their pain, it takes damage and grows weaker. This way the party could defeat it by simply allowing it to exhaust itself. Random idea though...

That seems a little too passive for Deathwatch though.

Why does Deathwatch have to be all aggressive though? It makes it into a battle of player tactics rather than who can shoot more.

It's not fun to just roll around dodging with the enemy defeating itself through its failure to connect. I wouldn't think there's a sense of real victory there.

Maybe the Omega Vault reveals an innocuous-looking talisman or three as protection? Something that makes the entity corporeal for a limited amount of time. Something that has to be puzzled out, used in a very specific way, and the PCs are left with discovering the secret to its properties, requiring a one-session side Mission involving tracing down some very ancient lore or "mystic" rite.

Deus ex Machina

The idea of a Deathwatch, or even just a normal space marine, 1: not being smart enough (Astartes are high level geniuses) to realize something as simple as, "the ghosts get weaker if they can't hurt us," and 2: being too proud or action crazed to take the most effectatious path of action and aimply wait the darn things out (or at least ignore them till they die) seems increadibly far fetched. Granted, players are generally not high-level geniuses nor have the same sense of duty and practalism a space marine would, but if they thought of it, then it shouldn't be swept under because it wasn't actiony enough.

Maybe the Omega Vault reveals an innocuous-looking talisman or three as protection?

I appreciate the suggestion, but this thing isn't a core objective, just an incidental bit of weirdness to add color to a particular location (-and I don't use the Jericho Reach setting, so I don't have an Omega Vault).

How about the monster having some kind of personal corporeal item it needs to survive/that can be used to damage it? Maybe a leftover from a previous manifestation. Hidden somewhere around, in some kind of lair, a crack in the wall, or something you come up with

How about the monster having some kind of personal corporeal item it needs to survive/that can be used to damage it? Maybe a leftover from a previous manifestation. Hidden somewhere around, in some kind of lair, a crack in the wall, or something you come up with

It sounds reasonable - if you use some sort of a phylactery, you can use it to flex the players' tactical muscles. You can use the Librarian's psyniscience - or, if the players are trigger-happy, his force weapon - or hide it in some xenotech device to utilize your Techmarine, if you have one, or just let the smarter players figure it out.